Gaming machines which provide players awards for obtaining winning symbol combinations in plays of primary or base games are well known. Such gaming machines generally require the player to place or make a primary or base wager to activate the primary or base game.
To fund such primary or base wagers, many of these gaming machines receive from a player one or more of an amount of cash, a ticket voucher (i.e., a bearer instrument redeemable for cash or game play on a gaming machine) or a promotional ticket (i.e., an instrument associated with a quantity of promotional credits redeemable for game play on a gaming machine, but not otherwise redeemable for cash). After establishing a quantity of credits of a credit balance based on the received cash, ticket voucher and/or promotional ticket, the gaming machine enables the player to wager such credits on one or more plays of one or more primary or base games. In addition to receiving cash, ticket vouchers and/or promotional tickets to establish a credit balance to wager from, many known gaming machines utilizes ticket vouchers when a player wishes to leave the gaming machine and has credits remaining on the gaming machine.
While the utilization of such ticket vouchers decreases certain known problems previously associated with gaming machines that dispensed coins or cash, the utilization of ticket vouchers and/or promotional tickets is still associated with various incurred labor and material costs. For example, the utilization of ticket vouchers is associated with the labor costs of having to periodically remove a cash box including received ticket vouchers and cash from the gaming machine, replace the removed cash box with an empty one and refill the blank ticket voucher stacks housed by the gaming machine. The utilization of such ticket vouchers is further associated with the various labor costs of counting the cash and ticket vouchers removed from the gaming machine and providing security associated with the removal, transport and subsequent counting of such cash and ticket vouchers. Accordingly, there exists a continuing need to reduce the utilization of ticket vouchers at gaming machines without the associated costs of having to install a new and relatively expensive system to do so.
Many known gaming machines are also in communication with a player loyalty or player tracking system configured to track such game play and other player activities. Specifically, a gaming establishment operator will employ one manufacturer's player tracking system in a gaming establishment and install (or cause to be installed) the player tracking units of that manufacturer's player tracking system in the different gaming machines manufactured by the different gaming machine manufacturers at that gaming establishment. In operation of these player tracking systems, player identification information is stored in association with a created player account and a physical instrument, such as a magnetic striped card, is issued to the player. The physical instrument is associated with the created player account and can be utilized during various activities within a gaming establishment to associate certain activities with a particular player. For example, a player can insert a magnetic-striped player tracking card into a card reader of the player tracking unit associated with a gaming machine to have a record of the player's gaming activity on the gaming machine stored to the account associated with the player tracking card. Such a player tracking unit may also include a player tracking processor configured to track the player's gaming activity and report such gaming activity to a gaming establishment management system which operates with one or more servers, such as one or more accounting servers, and player tracking system servers. Such a player tracking unit may also include one or more of: a display device to display the player's name and balance of player tracking points, one or more input devices, such as a touch screen or keypad to enable the player to enter a Personal Identification Number, and an interface connected to a slot machine interface board (that is connected to a communication port of the gaming machine and is configured to receive data from a gaming machine processor and transmit the data to the gaming establishment management system according to a designated communication protocol). Based on the player's gaming activities, such as an amount wagered, the gaming establishment may offer the player certain “comps” (i.e., complimentary offers), such as free or discounted services. In addition, the gaming establishment may mine and analyze the information gathered from the loyalty program to identify demographic information and behavioral patterns of their customers. This analysis can then be used to expand and personalize the complimentary offers provided to players.
While the utilization of gaming machines with player tracking units enhances certain player loyalty via facilitating that complementary offers are provided to certain players, known player tracking units are limited to tracking player activity and reporting such tracked player activity to an associated gaming establishment management system. Additionally, since different gaming establishments may each maintain a distinct player tracking account for a player (and thus may provide a distinct player tracking card to the player), players that frequent a plurality of different gaming establishments may need to carry a plurality of different player tracking cards with them. Accordingly, there is a continuing need to enable players that are enrolled in a plurality of player tracking systems to avoid having to carry a plurality of different player tracking cards. Moreover, while certain gaming establishment management systems provide player tracking functionality (via the player tracking units) and accounting functionality (via metering data communicated from the gaming machine), certain other gaming establishment management systems provide additional functionality such as bonusing functionality and/or progressive award functionality. However, since gaming establishment management systems are relatively expensive and time consuming to replace (and thus associated with the requisite gaming machine downtime during such replacement), gaming establishments are reluctant to replace previously installed gaming establishment management systems despite such gaming establishment management systems lacking certain functionality (bonusing functionality and/or progressive award functionality) which certain player's prefer. Accordingly, certain gaming establishments are in need of providing such additional gaming establishment management system functionality without the associated costs or gaming machine downtime associated with a complete replacement of the existing gaming establishment management system.